Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is a major province in China with large installed capacity of new energy and energy storage. Currently, its installed new energy capacity has exceeded 50 million kilowatts, and energy storage capacity has surpassed 6 million kilowatts. The picture shows the Yinchuan No.4 Photovoltaic Power Station in Yueyahu Township, Xingqing District, Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, continuously transmitting green electricity on August 29. (Photo by Yuan Hongyan, People's Visual)

On August 30, the nation's largest 1000MWh "coal-fired power + molten salt" energy storage project, constructed by the Anhui Branch of China Energy Investment Corporation at Suzhou Power Plant, completed the 168-hour trial operation and was officially put into operation. (Photo by Li Bo, People's Visual)

Discharging during peak electricity consumption and charging during off-peak hours – the application scope of such energy storage systems, vividly called "power banks", is constantly expanding.

According to the China New Energy Storage Development Report (2025) recently released by the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2024, the newly built and commissioned new energy storage capacity nationwide had reached 73.76 million kilowatts / 168 million kilowatt-hours, accounting for over 40% of the world's total installed capacity. China has thus become the world leader in new energy storage scale.

At the mountain pass of Jiawa Village, Qusong County, Shannan City, Tibet, several rows of white energy storage devices in a solar-storage power station emit a low hum from time to time. "These are energy storage devices supporting photovoltaic power generation. The electricity generated by the power station during the day is temporarily 'stored' here and transmitted when electricity demand surges at night to avoid waste," said Cui Guangze, General Manager of Huaneng Yajiang New Energy Branch.

In Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, a 150,000-kilowatt / 600,000-kilowatt-hour energy storage project was successfully connected to the grid and operated at full power in August last year – it is the world's highest-altitude and largest-scale high-voltage direct-connected energy storage system project, with a single-unit capacity of 25,000 kilowatts / 100,000 kilowatt-hours, enabling independent grid regulation for a single unit. Without the need for a power frequency transformer, the system efficiency is increased by 4% to 6%, and it can respond quickly within 10 milliseconds.

...

Building energy storage to "store green electricity" is a proactive choice under China's general trend of vigorously developing renewable energy and striving to build a new power system. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, derived from nature, have unstable supply. Whenever there is extreme heat without wind or peak demand at night without sunlight, new energy power generation faces the problem of unstable output. The construction of new energy storage is like equipping with "power banks" and "dispatching stations" – when the sun blazes and wind power generation is at full capacity, it can "store" the surplus green electricity; when there is no wind or sunlight, or during peak electricity consumption, it can timely "discharge and supplement energy", ensuring that lights stay on in thousands of households and machines run continuously in factories.

Data shows that by the end of 2024, China's new energy storage installed capacity had reached 73.76 million kilowatts, accounting for over 40% of the global total, with an average annual growth rate exceeding 130% and a 20-fold increase since the 14th Five-Year Plan period. By the end of June this year, the national new energy storage installed capacity had reached 94.91 million kilowatts / 222 million kilowatt-hours, an increase of about 29% compared with the end of 2024. Among them, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang both had installed capacity exceeding 10 million kilowatts, while Shandong, Jiangsu, and Ningxia all had installed capacity exceeding 5 million kilowatts.

Why has new energy storage scale achieved rapid growth? This is closely related to clear policy guidance.

The Energy Law includes "promoting the high-quality development of new energy storage"; "developing new energy storage" was written into this year's Government Work Report for the first time, clarifying that the functional positioning of new energy storage is to play its regulatory role in the new power system. In addition, a number of policy documents such as the Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027) and the Guiding Opinions on Supporting the Innovative Development of New Market Entities in the Power Sector have continuously improved the electricity market mechanism and guided its scientific development.

"At present, the application effect of new energy storage is gradually emerging. The dispatching of new energy storage throughout 2024 has increased significantly compared with 2023. Provinces such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Chongqing, and Xinjiang have achieved an average annual equivalent utilization hour of over 1,000, becoming an important means to promote the development and consumption of new energy. During the summer peak period, new energy storage has fully exerted its role as a 'super power bank' and contributed significantly to power supply guarantee during peak hours," said Bian Guangqi, Deputy Director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Science & Technology Equipment of the National Energy Administration.

In Suzhou, Anhui Province, the nation's largest "coal-fired power + molten salt" energy storage project recently completed the 168-hour trial operation and was officially put into operation – it is China's first set of gigawatt-hour-level coal-fired power molten salt heat storage and exchange complete equipment and control system, as well as one of the first national green and low-carbon advanced technology demonstration projects.

"The introduction of molten salt heat storage technology is like connecting an external 'heat storage tank' to traditional cogeneration units," an official from Suzhou Power Plant of China Energy Investment Corporation Anhui Branch introduced. When the peak-shaving pressure of the unit is low, steam can be used to heat the molten salt and store the heat in the "heat storage tank"; during peak and off-peak electricity consumption periods, the "heat storage tank" is used for external heating, supporting the unit to fully participate in peak shaving and realize full power generation at peak times or peak shaving at off-peak times. "Storing heat during idle periods and supplying heat during busy periods" improves the regulatory flexibility of the unit and solves the problem that coal-fired power units struggle to balance heating and power supply.

This is a microcosm of continuous innovation in energy storage project applications. The Report shows that various technical routes in the energy storage field are being implemented at an accelerated pace. By the end of 2024, lithium-ion battery energy storage had dominated among various new energy storage technical routes. At the same time, innovations in various energy storage technologies have made new progress: the technical level of lithium-ion battery energy storage has continued to improve; multiple types of new energy storage technologies are transitioning to commercial applications; and a batch of new energy storage technologies are being demonstrated and applied at an accelerated rate.

Through the ever-updating technological innovation achievements, we can see China's gradient development ecosystem of new energy storage featuring "applying one generation, demonstrating one generation, and pre-researching one generation". Bian Guangqi introduced that last year, the National Energy Administration released 56 new energy storage pilot projects covering more than ten technical routes. Among them, many pilot projects are the first engineering applications in China, showing an overall diversified development trend, which has effectively promoted breakthroughs in key technologies and equipment of new energy storage. Meanwhile, 12 new energy storage projects were selected as supporting projects for the 4th batch of major technical equipment (the first set) in the energy field, providing application scenarios for the implementation and transformation of major technical equipment (the first set).

"Currently, technological innovation in China's new energy storage has shifted from individual breakthroughs to systematic layout, providing full-cycle technical support for the construction of a new power system," said Rao Hong, Chief Scientist of China Southern Power Grid. For example, the lithium battery-dominated technology has achieved generational leapfrogging, with rapid iterations in battery itself, thermal management, and grid-connected system technology; compressed air energy storage, flow battery energy storage, flywheel energy storage, etc., have achieved engineering breakthroughs, laying a technical foundation for the long-term regulatory capacity required by high-proportion new energy power systems; a batch of cutting-edge and disruptive technologies such as semi-solid state batteries, all-solid state batteries, and hydrogen energy storage are developing rapidly to meet the future needs of new power systems for multi-time-scale storage, high-safety storage, and extreme environment adaptability.

"Large-scale application and the construction and operation of demonstration projects have verified the feasibility and economy of different technologies, further promoting the iterative upgrading of new technologies and realizing the sound and healthy development of multiple technical routes," Rao Hong said.

The "blossoming" of new energy storage technical routes is also inseparable from the continuously improved industry standard system. It is reported that in 2024, more than 20 electrochemical energy storage standards were issued and implemented, and a number of standards were approved, covering planning and design, grid connection, operation control, maintenance and testing, post-evaluation and other links, further enhancing the construction level of China's new energy storage standard system.

At present, with the rapid development of new energy, new energy storage is playing an active role in power system peak shaving and power supply guarantee.

Since the beginning of summer this year, the national maximum power load has hit new highs repeatedly, breaking historical records of 16 provincial-level power grids 36 times. The centralized dispatching test of new energy storage for summer peak conducted by the National Power Dispatching and Control Center has effectively verified and exerted the peak-shaving and power-supply guarantee capability of new energy storage. By the end of July, the maximum adjustable power of new energy storage in the operating area of State Grid had reached 64.23 gigawatts, and the real-time maximum discharge power had reached 44.53 gigawatts, an increase of 55.7% compared with the peak value in the same period last year. During the test, the peak-shaving capacity demonstrated by new energy storage was equivalent to the capacity of nearly 3 Three Gorges Hydropower Stations, with an average peak-shaving duration of about 2.4 hours during the summer evening peak, strongly supporting power supply during peak electricity consumption periods.

Building new energy storage requires capital investment, and participating in power supply regulation also incurs corresponding costs. How to calculate the balance between input and output?

Li Zhen, Deputy Secretary-General of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, introduced that currently, new energy storage is gradually evolving into an independent entity participating in the auxiliary service market, spot market, and medium-and-long-term market. "The Basic Rules for Electricity Market Operation issued in 2024 officially established energy storage as a new market entity, endowing it with the right to participate in electricity market transactions fairly," Li Zhen said. That is to say, energy storage enterprises participating in electricity market regulation can obtain corresponding benefits based on relevant electricity volume. This provides clear and stable market participation expectations for energy storage enterprises and lays a solid institutional foundation for the large-scale and commercial development of the industry.

Taking the operating area of State Grid as an example, according to Meng Qingqiang, Chief Engineer of State Grid Corporation of China and Chairman of State Grid Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd., State Grid took the lead in building a market-oriented mechanism for new energy storage, supporting 22 provinces (autonomous regions) in issuing market rules, and exploring capacity compensation mechanisms in Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Hebei; Jiangsu established a comprehensive revenue model of "electricity spot market price difference + peak-shaving subsidy + auxiliary services"; Gansu implemented an independent energy storage bidding compensation mechanism; Hubei adopted a priority clearing mechanism in the spot market. In 2024, the transaction volume of new energy storage in the operating area of State Grid reached 7.12 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 2.7 times.

However, although the reform of the electricity market is advancing at an accelerated pace, the problem of unbalanced development among regions is prominent, and there are significant differences in the openness to new energy storage across different regions. For example, in regions where the spot market has been operating continuously, independent energy storage has generally entered the spot market; in non-spot market regions, a considerable number of energy storage projects still find it difficult to obtain electricity revenue by participating in the medium-and-long-term market.

Regarding further improving the market mechanism for new energy storage participation, the Report also clarifies relevant requirements: it will study and improve the price mechanism for regulatory resources including new energy storage to reasonably guide new energy storage investment. It will scientifically evaluate the investment substitution benefits of new energy storage transmission and distribution facilities, and encourage the promotion of grid-substituting energy storage in areas where distribution network expansion is restricted or in remote areas.

"We will further expand the application scenarios of new energy storage, improve dispatching and operation levels, accelerate the improvement of market mechanisms, and promote the high-quality development of the new energy storage industry," Bian Guangqi said.(Reporter: Liao Ruiling, Page 11, September 3, 2025)